Authors note: well, if you have poke about earth defences. Please poke me.
Disclaimer: if you're a crog, and you get lost in space, you have no sense of direction. And you've been thrown out of the crog military because of it, since they can't find you.
Practically dead;
Chapter six: so close.
It had been only a few minute and they were only a mile or so away from the Earths o-zone layer. It had been ordered, by none other then Talon that they cut the hyper drive, lest they run out of fuel. They paces was normal, neither trident had been moving for a long while; it appears one aspect of the plan had been over looked.
"Look, I told you we need to get to the planet defences undetected, but someone forgot to upgrade the tridents. So has anyone else come up with an idea yet?" Talons all too familiar voice sounded over the slightly fuzzy radio.
"Well, genius, I suppose we'll just have to fly through them" Pappianna was just irritated, her target was close, so close, it mocked her every minute she sat in the still, unmoving trident.
"What? And get blown to star dust in the process?" Ajax glanced at pepper "great plan" his voice was etched with sarcasm, he rolled his eyes and he turned to the monitors.
"I have to agree with Ajax on this Pepper, we can't just waltz on in there. Think about it, there are three of us, and well, and the entire population of the planet" there he goes again, always having a valid point. It frustrated Pappianna to no end.
"Any better ideas?" Pappianna asked, quite obviously annoyed.
"Yes actually, take a look at the monitors" Ajax stated, pointing towards the monitors.
"Earth…yeah, what about it?"Talon for the first time in a while, spoke in a questioning tone.
"Not earth, its defences. Talon, is that a motion detector?" Ajax's ear's perked up, he had an idea, and it seemed like a good one.
Pappianna glanced at the monitor and then at Ajax while the crackling of the speakers sounded once more. "Ye-Ajax! Smooth! Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"If it's blowing that piece of scrap metal to oblivion then yes." Ajax by now had a huge grin on his face, oh how he loved to blow things up. He had quite a history.
"Um…well, no." Ajax by now was frowning, he so badly wanted to hurt something, even if it wasn't a living thing, metal would do "I was thinking that if we got past them. Which we obviously need to do, then we're earth free"
"Well done, diygo, your plan?" Pappianna said rolling her eyes.
A grunt came form the speakers before Talons voice sounded "we need to disarm it, and if we do, there should be enough space for the tridents to slip through virtually unnoticed…this is where Ajax…blows it up…"
"So, you really were thinking what Ajax was thinking" Pappianna pointed out triumphantly.
"Yes…" Talon sighed in defeat.
"Can I blow things up now?" Ajax asked impatiently, he seemed to be beaming, and the only time he ever did that was when he was faced with the choice of what to blow up first.
"Let's make quick work of that scrap metal!" Pappianna shouted pointing at the monitors as if he was pointing at something in the distances.
Ajax grinned; if you were a passer by you would have been able to see the fury of the pink, yet deadly lasers from which were being emitted by both tridents. In less then five seconds two beams of a fiery fuchsia laser matter was sent toward the closest motion detector. The force of the attack was so strong there was absolutely no trace of that little piece of machinery left. It was truly nothing but star dust, on the insides of the tridents however, Ajax gave a malicious grin. He finally figured out he was in the mood for blood shed. Fortunately, for the human race, Pappianna was having none of it.
"Good, I'm glad you satisfied your pyromania, now please, fly!" stated most of the sentence plainly until the very last word, it was full of relief and complete and utter rage, the chase it seemed, was on.
With that both ships headed forward into the narrow gap the now none existent motion detector left unprotected. It was wide enough to fit one trident in at a time, with a little extra space to spare. They couldn't linger too long, surely the humans kept tabs of their defences. One by one the tridents slipped through the gap, they lingered for a moment, now unsure of what to do.
"Crash it" Pepper stated.
"What?" Ajax raised an eyebrow
"I said: Crash. It." Pepper repeated.
"Pepper-" Ajax tried to reason
"Do it now or they'll spot us! Anyway, I think we'll need to look helpless!" Pepper interjected
"I'm not crashing my baby" Talon protested.
"Fine, then we'll leak its fuel, Ajax, crash it, we'll be fine, now try and crash in that region there! Hurry already! They'll spot us; it'll be too slow if we fly there"
Ajax sighed letting the steering do most of its own thing, whist Talon pretended to be veering out of control; it was an act, so it didn't look suspicious, even if people noticed.
Soon enough there was a large cloud of dirt flying a mile or so in the air; the shape it formed looked akin to a mushroom bomb, as the cloud formed a similar shape to one. Talon allowed himself to have at least a little bit of a rough landing, in keeping with the effect of total helplessness.
Pappianna's trident flipped as they prong plunged into the ground snapping off in the process. The trident was more or less okay, with the exception of a few dents in the metal work here and there, also caked in mud and dirt. Unfortunately neither of the occupants stayed conscious through the crash landing. Both were seated in the trident, seemingly unhurt. Apart from the few droplets of blood escaped from Ajax's right arm.
Talon however was very much conscious and very much angry as well as panicked. The crash he witnessed was terrifying; he just hoped they were okay. He shook his head, he need to concentrate. He undid his safety harness and stepped out of his trident giving it a quick once over as he headed for Ajax's own. He glared when he noticed the paintwork had been scratched. He walked forward a while longer looking around, there were trees, lots and lots…of trees, he glanced at the ground, dirt, just dirt and soil. He had also noticed a few earth critters, insects and birds. He shuddered, he'd been here just a few minutes and already he wanted out.
He stopped just short of his friend's trident, he was standing next to the shoot, he pressed a button, and the doors swooshed open. His eye's widened, he saw the blood on Ajax's arm, and carefully pulled him out onto the dirt ground. He then turned back and unhooked Pappianna from the safety harness, carefully placing her on the ground next to Ajax, a good safe distance away from the trident.
He Eye's the loose prong, which was now at least five feet away from the rest of the trident; he cringed at the thought of what would happen if he lost both of his friends. He turned to the wreckage, there were large gashes on the sides of the ship, the head prong, the main balance support beam, or what was left of it, was raged and bent chipped and broken in numerous ways, he walked to the back of the trident and with some effort opened to the engine hold (like the hood of a car, but it's not at the front so I thought of another name for it) he sighed in relief at least the engine isn't badly damaged…this'll make my job a lot easier Talon thought to himself as he gave the engine a quick to do.
A deep and pained grunt sounded from the tree Talon had placed to two unconscious under. He turned to see Ajax sat up rubbing his head, and turning his attention to his arm "man…how do I miss these things?" Ajax gasped in surprise as he heard a voice sound from behind him.
"You tell me" Ajax sighed with relief when he saw it was only Talon walking up to him with what looked like a first aid kit.
"How long have I been out?" Ajax questioned, allowing Talon to tend to his wound.
"A few minutes a guess" Talon replied completely focused of his task.
An incoherent mumble sounded from the bundle next to them, they turned to see pepper, she tried to sit up, placing her hand gingerly on the ground next to her, and pressed hard as she tried to move into a sitting position. She gasped in surprise and pain and grasped her wrist in her hand, cradling it, she instead decided to push herself up with her elbows, and in now time at all was sat inspecting her wrist.
"How badly does it hurt?" Talon questioned earning Peppers gaze.
"Pretty bad" she replied passing her wrist to Talons outstretched palm.
"Can you move it?" he questioned again.
"No…" she said now feeling very angry with herself, and her wrist.
"Well, from the looks of things, you only sprained it, it should be okay in a few days, just keep it in this" he said had he tried a piece of cloth around her neck and placing her arm inside it "just rest it" talon gave a small smile as he saw Pappianna nod and smile gratefully.
"Hey- is my ship okay?" Ajax spoke up finally remembering the crash.
"Does it look it?" Talon stated raising an eyebrow. Ajax turned and gasped at the sight before him, his baby, his poor baby, mutilated! Ajax groaned in despair whist Pappianna walked toward the ship, smiling, she just hoped her little surprise was okay.
"What's she doing?" Ajax questioned his ears drooping, he'd only ever seem Pappianna smile like that when she had a 'surprise' for them, usually not an all that great surprise. He turned to Talon who looked at him and shrugged, it was then they heard a loud squeal, the stood up in alarm, only to have Pappianna run out with a small bag in her left hand.
"Look what I found! Here these are for you guys!" she set the bag on the ground and rummaged through it with her right hand "Ah-ha! Talon these are for you" she said flinging what looked like two piles of cloth at him.
Talon unrolled the cloth what in the name of the gods? Was what he thought, he had unrolled a pair of black jeans with a simple white shirt, he looked up once again only to have three more items of clothing thrown at him. He placed the others on a near by boulder from what he could tell, he had been given a white belt, a white pair of converses (Emo trainers if you have no idea what they are) and a maroon jacket. He sighed; he wasn't going to like this.
Pappianna was still rummaging through the bag as she spoke "I thought, if he didn't look like we were from the military, we could get by easier"
Pappianna flung a pair of blue jeans at Ajax, with a grey shirt, he had a pair of black trainers thrown at him as well as a red belt and red fingerless gloves (think Jordan's, but red) Ajax sighed as he caught the last item of clothing this isn't going to end well…Ajax thought taking a look at the plain sky blue hoody he'd been thrown
"I have my stuff on, don't worry, I bought spares" she said with a huge grin on her face, which was only taken off because Talon protested
"These are earth clothes…" he stated still looking at his own set of clothes.
"Well duh, we could look less harmless with this stuff on then armour" she said eying the male crogs who were currently in their uniforms "put them on, hurry" she said turning around.
The males looked at one another and sighed in defeat, when Pappianna made up her mind about something, there was no changing it. a few minutes passed and they were finally done, it took them a while to figure out what went where, but they managed it "you can turn around now Pepper" Ajax said after checking Talon was done.
Pappianna gasped in surprise "By. The. Gods." She squealed "See! I can dress anyone!" she winked and formed the peace sign in triumph with her right hand. She snapped herself out of her own strange behaviour "Wow…I crash really can change a person, anyway, talon get on with leaking your fuel, Ajax, put the uniforms in the tridents, I'll stand watch"
Both males nodded and set to work.